Czechia will hold a legislative election on 20-21 October 2017. The last election took place in October 2013.

Czechia uses proportional representation: 200 MPs are elected in multi-member constituencies. There is a threshold (national level) of 5% for parties and 10% for coalitions.

From 1996 until 2010, the Czech party system was relatively stable. Two large parties, center-right conservative ODS and social democratic ČSSD, competed for the first place and either one of them led the government. There were two mid-sized parties: the Communists (KSČM) and the Christian Democrats (KDU-ČSL) -- together, these four parties received over 80% of the parliamentary seats. The 2010 election proved to be somewhat of an earthquake election, however, with the breakthrough of a number of new parties, the Christian Democrats and the governing Greens falling below the 5% threshold, and the loss of support for ODS and ČSSD. Following a corruption scandal the government collapsed and an early election took place in 2013. The seat distribution was as follows:ODS collapsed as opposition leaders ČSSD remained relatively stable, the populist, ideologically vague party ANO led by billionaire Andrej Babiš came second, pro-European centrist liberal TOP 09 lost some support too, the Christian Democrats re-entered parliament with a strong showing, and the right-wing nationalist Dawn of Direct Democracy entered parliament. Following the election, a coalition of ČSSD, ANO and the Christian Democrats was formed, led by Social Democrat Bohuslav Sobotka.

Brace yourselves: current polls look like this. (Disclamer: polls are sometimes unreliable in Czechia).ANO are poised to do very well -- given the fact that quite some parties don't manage to surmount the 5% threshold they would get over 35% of parliamentary seats based on these polls. No small feat given that they have been in the government for four years already, with Babiš as Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister. ČSSD have lost some support; ODS, who reached rock bottom in the last election, could only go up; Dawn are dead since Okamura left the party and formed his own SPD (Freedom and Direct Democracy, nothing Social Democratic); TOP 09, who relied heavily on Schwarzenberg, have continued bleeding support to ANO.

Given that Babiš is a media tycoon as well, there have been concerns that he would become Czechia's own Berlusconi; for this reason, parliament earlier this year voted for a law that bans "cabinet ministers from owning media firms or more than a quarter of any company pursuing state contracts or European Union subsidies" (the Economist).

I think we have some Czech posters here, so perhaps they could give us some more information on where the parties stand, what they promise, and what kind of policies they expect in the coming years. Contentious issues include corruption and the adoption of the euro with or without referendum (with polls showing about 75% of Czechs currently oppose adopting the euro).

those poll numbers make no sense at all.....or the local austrian media is framing the development in a strange way.

seemingly ANO is mixed in some wild corruption allegations....but, looking at those poll numbers, this couldn't have been a good reason for the social democrats to destroy the coalition, since they couldn't win anything anyway......

as long as Babis himself isn't going to be arrested soon, question marks are all i got.

What should we make of the persistent communists? They're definititely an abheration in the region.

The communists are the barely reformed "incarnation" of the former ruling communist party; some degree of nostalgia continues to exist with certain demographics (mainly the elderly). Eternal opposition does not hurt the party's performance in elections so it seems these people just want to be heard. I imagine it's the same demographic that still votes for Die Linke in East Germany. The communists seem to do best in the northwest (near the German border, in Sudetenland) and in the industrial east.

The Hungarian MSZP were founded in 1989 by the reformist wing of the ruling Communists, and Slovakian Smer's predecessor was founded by communists too, so that leaves Poland as the only country in the region without a party in parliament that has its roots in the communist regime. Perhaps it's just a historical accident that the commies in Czechia continued to stand in elections after communism without reforming?

What should we make of the persistent communists? They're definititely an abheration in the region.

The communists are the barely reformed "incarnation" of the former ruling communist party; some degree of nostalgia continues to exist with certain demographics (mainly the elderly). Eternal opposition does not hurt the party's performance in elections so it seems these people just want to be heard. I imagine it's the same demographic that still votes for Die Linke in East Germany. The communists seem to do best in the northwest (near the German border, in Sudetenland) and in the industrial east.

The Hungarian MSZP were founded in 1989 by the reformist wing of the ruling Communists, and Slovakian Smer's predecessor was founded by communists too, so that leaves Poland as the only country in the region without a party in parliament that has its roots in the communist regime. Perhaps it's just a historical accident that the commies in Czechia continued to stand in elections after communism without reforming?

Isn't the Polish SLD descended in part from the old Communist Party, via the SdrP?

Edit: Forgot they are currently extra-parliamentary. Seems like that is likely temporary, though.

Lived in Prague for a few months in 2015, so have different bits to add to David's great opening posts.

CSSD has been in a more less constant war with Babis during the term together, making constant allegations against him for corruption, getting EU-funds for himself etc. It is really hard to judge how serious the new allegations are. If there is no real smoking gun, then it seems likely that most ANO-voters would simply brush of these allegations as well.

ANO looks likely to be by far the biggest party, but interesting who Babis will prefer as coalition partners and who will want to back him. CSSD will very likely not back a Babis-led coalition, and TOP09 is probably ruled out as well. ODS could be a fairly likely partner, but if their goal is a return as the dominant centre-right party, then legitimizing ANO and Babis might not be the best choice. Perhaps the Christian Democrats, who have allied with the succesful localist party STAN, could be enough, but I actually think cooperation with the Communists or Okamura is not as unlikely as one would think for an ALDE-party with a European Commissioner in their ranks.

There were regional and senate elections last year. They were certainly a loss for CSSD, who lost 10 of the 12 senate seats they were defending and only received 15% in both elections. However, they weren't really a giant victory for ANO. Despite getting 14 candidates through to the second round of the senate elections, they only won 3 seats. Instead, all sorts of local and independent candidates won several seats. And despite topping the polls in 9 of 13 regions, ANO only won 21% nationwide and only ended up with 5 regional governors. Perhaps this just reflected the new ANO party's poor local organization in some places, and that turnout was 33% compared to 60% at the latest general election, but it does suggest the possibility of the general election not being a simple home-run.

Václav Klaus Jr. is running for ODS in Prague.

The Sobotka government has like most of the new CEE governments been critical of the ideas to distribute asylum seekers, but unlike Hungary and Slovakia, they did not vote against it in the European council. Probably a part of Sobotka's plan to court close relations with Germany. Leaked emails by a Russian group even showed that some key advisers around Sobotka tried to tone the migration scepticism further down, but he wisely refrained from that in a country, where the opposition to taking refugees is massive.

What should we make of the persistent communists? They're definititely an abheration in the region.

They have a quite good chance of playing an important role after the elections. Both Babis and Sobotka have stated an willigness to cooperate with them after the election, which also shows how sick and tired they are of each other.

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An unwritten political agreement about keeping the Communist Party out of top-level politics in the Czech Republic may be about to end. Shortly after the ANO party indicated the possibility of entering into a coalition with them following the autumn general election, Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka has said his Social Democrats would also be ready to accept them in a broad coalition government with a pro-European and social perspective. I spoke to political scientist Jiří Pehe about the implications of this development.

Well, Zeman and Sobotka are arch enemies. Zeman tried to orchestrate a coup against Sobotka in CSSD after the 2013 elections, so Michal Hašek could be CSSD leader and PM instead. On the other hand, Zeman has a quite good relationship with Babis, and it's not impossible that Babis could support Zeman's reelection bid in 2018.

It seems quite clear that Zeman will not accept a solution detrimental to Babis and ANO. And if Babis is to accept stepping down as Finance Minister, Sobotka needs to step down as PM as well. Babis suggested he could accept foreign minister Zaoralek as temporary PM with a Babis acolyte as Finance Minister. For Babis it is probably crucial that the Finance Ministry in one way or another stays on his hands, since they would otherwise be best placed to carry out a thorough investigation of his dealings.

It seems like there has also been the leaking of a tape, that suggests that Babis is somewhat involved in the news coverage of a paper owned by Babis' Agrofert. Seems a bit more concrete than all the financial stuff, so perhaps this could actually do some damage to Babis.

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Christian Democrat Jurečka described his junior coalition party as the cool heads in previous coalition flare ups. And that’s a role they could well find themselves having to play again, especially after the release of two recordings in which Andrej Babiš is apparently heard insulting his Social Democrat ministerial colleagues and talking rather underhand political tactics with a reporter from one of the national newspaper’s owned by Babiš’ Agrofert empire. The newspaper later admitted that one of its reporters featured on the tape.

Forging a coalition with the Communists may seriously hurt ANO's chances of filling the electoral void on the Czech right and replacing the ODS as main party of the Czech right for a longer period of time, though, and ANO have been highly wary of doing anything that can hurt them -- potential members are screened thoroughly and there is a strategy behind everything Babis says in public. I am not sufficiently well-versed in Czech politics to assess whether a coalition (or, perhaps less controversial, outside support deal) between ANO and the Communists is likely and trust you 100% if you say this may be a serious option, but I also think ANO will take into account the above considerations if they have any other options after the election. ANO may already have a majority with the Christian Democrats and either Okamura's SPD or ODS (though, as you said, this will be far from easy too). Things seem to get complicated in any case.

Forging a coalition with the Communists may seriously hurt ANO's chances of filling the electoral void on the Czech right and replacing the ODS as main party of the Czech right for a longer period of time, though, and ANO have been highly wary of doing anything that can hurt them -- potential members are screened thoroughly and there is a strategy behind everything Babis says in public. I am not sufficiently well-versed in Czech politics to assess whether a coalition (or, perhaps less controversial, outside support deal) between ANO and the Communists is likely and trust you 100% if you say this may be a serious option, but I also think ANO will take into account the above considerations if they have any other options after the election. ANO may already have a majority with the Christian Democrats and either Okamura's SPD or ODS (though, as you said, this will be far from easy too). Things seem to get complicated in any case.

There is certainly a quite hard vetting process for candidates and members in ANO, but I'm less sure how prepared and thought through all of Babis' statements are, which is partly why it is hard to predict exactly what he and ANO will do. Babis to me seems more like someone who speaks his mind at the moment, despite it maybe contrasting with things he said previously. Perhaps another reason why Zeman likes him better than the more subdued, technocratic Sobotka. Also it can be hard to gauge how much the significant, strong pro-EU politicians actually affect the party. E.g. ANO EU Commissioner Jourova convinced Babis to back the EU gender quota directive, which was quite surprising. This is hardly a crucially important matter, especially since the directive still hasn't passed in the Council, but it is interesting how much Babis will listen to the likes of Jourova and Telicka. They would certainly prefer a coalition with the more mainstream pro-EU parties, and yes preferably as a standard centre-right party (which one of them could then take over after Babis). However, the question is how much Babis considers these tactical, long-term considerations himself. Whether he intends for his company to continue supporting the party after he's gone, or whether he only looks at how he could become PM, and expects the party to collapse without him anyway.

A support deal with the communists, more likely than coalition, will certainly not be without complications. It is mainly that most of the other mainstream parties have attacked Babis quite relentlessly, so it would be an embarrassing climbdown if they were to help make him PM. The Christian Democrats are his best shot, but even Belobradek and him have taken their battles in public. And if they are not enough for a majority, I really do think that Communists or Okamura could be his second best possibility. Those two parties arguably don't even differ much in rhetoric and policy goals; the horseshoe political spectre etc. Okamura might be more palatable to Babis and his voters as a fellow business man, but on the other hand, he is quite a loose cannon, so the old and calm Communist party would probably be a much more stable partner. Babis has not been afraid to make policy compromises, excessively so according to TOP09 and ODS, who (not wrongly) states that the current government has mostly carried through CSSD policy. So I don't think he will be hesitate to make significant policy concessions to get one of them on board. And his career does suggest that he is not afraid of working with current or previous communists to get what he wants, although of course the exact nature of his KGB and StB connections is another point of frequent political and legal discussion between Babis and his opponents.

It seems like the Zeman-Sobotka meeting yesterday was quite something. Zeman's analysis in the second quote is of course quite accurate, but claiming that only Sobotka, and not Babis, should leave the government is quite sublime trolling.

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PRAGUE – It’s no secret that Czech President Milos Zeman is not a fan of Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka. But what happened on Thursday surpassed anything that had happened between them in the past and shocked the country. Sobotka arrived at Prague Castle, the seat of the presidency, on Thursday for consultations with the president following his decision to resign with his government over the business dealings of his finance minister. Sobotka had announced earlier in the day that he would formally submit his resignation later in the month.

But on arrival, Sobotka was told to make a statement to the media. As the premier looked confused, Zeman pointed to a microphone with his walking stick. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m really not sure what to speak about,” Sobotka said, adding he had come to talk to the president. Zeman, though, had more to say. In an apparent deliberate act of humiliation, he told Sobotka he was accepting his resignation. He thanked Sobotka for his work and asked the government to remain in place until he appoints a new prime minister. “I’m not here to resign,” a visibly shaken Sobotka replied. “I expected to hold standard talks with the president.”

The scene was broadcast live by public television. Zeman told him to blame his office for informing him too late about a change in the premier’s plan. Sobotka originally planned to resign this week. The president also told Sobotka he was not ready to meet him over the issue again. “This ceremony is final and I can see no reason to repeat it again,” he said, and left. Sobotka remained to tell reporters the scene had been unnecessary. “This is Czech politics, I’m afraid,” he said, adding that he would submit his resignation later, by letter. He then left to join Zeman for private talks – the contents of which the assembled media could only guess at.

“It was quite an unusual manifestation of arrogance toward the prime minister,” analyst Kamil Svec commented on Czech public television

It is absurd to change dramatically the government lineup six months before the regular election, Zeman said. "With some minor exceptions, the government should remain in the same lineup. Sobotka is the only one who should be replaced," he added. Zeman said Sobotka had decided to leave in his own right, while the rest of the ministers should continue "with some minor exceptions."

A man capable of gaining the trust of the Chamber of Deputies should be the new prime minister, Zeman said. "Zaoralek can be expected to gain it because his support may cut across the coalition government parties. Chovanec may be blocked by ANO," he added.

Zeman said the government's resignation announced by Sobotka earlier this week was an act of his desperation caused by the Social Democrats' falling preferences. "It is cowardly, leaving the fight instead of fighting when the election is to be held soon," he added.

Just to back up the potential Babis + Communists/Okamura deal, Czech political analyst Jiri Pehe states in this article about Babis "Yet he has little interest in foreign policy. "The greatest danger is if Babis becomes prime minister and then leaves the foreign ministry to a coalition partner from the nationalist right or the communists," states Pehe. "Babis is not interested in foreign policy, and he doesn't understand it." As stated previously, I think support is more likely than coalition, but cooperation is considered a clear possibility. Perhaps those, like Pehe, who are largely opposed to Babis, are a bit more interested to talk up the chances of this happening though. As another prove of what a terrible, ruthless fellow, they believe he is.

Babis' relation to the other main stream parties can be summed up by a February quote where he, in response to what he claims is a cover-up of previous corruption, stated that "The Czech Palermo has won again. These are the parties behind the corruption, the CSSD, the ODS and the master of corruption, mr Kalousek (TOP09 leader)". Fiala, ODS leader, responded that Babis was the "consigliere" of Czech politics, and the person with the most dirty dealings in the Czech Republic during the last 25 years. Again, notable that the Christian Democrats were omitted by Babis, suggesting that they are an acceptable coalition partner. His view of Kalousek is one many in the country share, umprompted I have heard several people state that "he has a pot of hidden corruption money for himself somewhere". He is certainly the main culprit if TOP 09 fails to get above the threshold. Interesting that the Pirates are getting fairly close to the threshold, perhaps some of the disappointed highly educated urban types from TOP 09 are turning pirate.

There is certainly a quite hard vetting process for candidates and members in ANO, but I'm less sure how prepared and thought through all of Babis' statements are, which is partly why it is hard to predict exactly what he and ANO will do. Babis to me seems more like someone who speaks his mind at the moment, despite it maybe contrasting with things he said previously.

You're absolutely right, I should have worded my post differently: most of what Babis says is probably made up on the spot, but the party has an excellent PR machine to spin it as if it is coherent and makes sense.

It seems like the current government crisis is mainly crystallizing support for and against Babis; there is little evidence that ANO is losing support over this.

According to a Median poll, 25% believe Babis is to blame for the current government crisis while 27% put the blame on Sobotka. 41% blame them equally. Looking at the preferred path of action now, 37% believe Babis should be dismissed from the government without delay, while 18% believe he should not be dismissed no matter what. 37% support the path laid out by Zeman, which is to go to the Constitutional Court to determine whether Zeman is obliged to follow the constitution and obey Sobotka's wishes regarding the Babis sacking, or whether Sobotka's breach of the government pact in dismissing ministers from other parties without their consent means that Zeman does not have to follow Sobotka's wish.

Babis is playing the role of the responsible statesman, and argues that he can't see a reason to break the government pact of "one of the most successful governments since the Velvet Revolution". He is now proposing that his acolyte, deputy Finance Minister Alena Schillerova, takes over; something which CSSD so far rejects. Sobotka might prefer not to break the government pact directly, as this would likely lead to snap elections and probably no real possibility to make a credible investigation of Babis' financial dealings. However, it is hard to see what else could happen unless Sobotka makes a humiliating backtrack.

Communists push for no-confidence vote, but right wing opposition wants to keep government afloat

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The KSCM has been collecting deputies' signatures in support for convoking an extraordinary session of the Chamber of Deputies. To explain the effort, KSCM chairman Vojtech Filip says constitutional officials have ceased to communicate with each other in a normal way. He may be alluding to a rift between Sobotka's CSSD and Babis's ANO and between the CSSD and President Milos Zeman, who is reluctant to sack Babis.

The right-wing opposition parties, however, do not plan to join the KSCM's effort to push-through a no-confidence vote. Both TOP 09 and the Civic Democrats (ODS) said after their deputies groups' separate meetings on Tuesday that the toppling of the government would enhance President Zeman's position amid the government crisis, which they do not wish.

Deputies for the minor opposition Dawn movement took a reserved stance on the KSCM's plan and said they will wait for Zeman's next steps before deciding on whether to support the KSCM's initiative.

A no-confidence motion of course matters little if Babis and Sobotka finds a solution to the government crisis, but so far Sobotka has not accepted Babis' proposed alternatives as Finance Minister. This means that if the government crisis is not solved, Sobotka could conceivably sack all ANO-ministers and continue with a Social Democrat-Christian Democrat minority government without getting a vote of no-confidence. ANO + Communists + Dawn only has 87 out of 200 seats in parliament currently. Zeman would try to delay such a step, but in the end I believe the Constitutional Court will tell him to accept the dismissals. A bit surprising that TOP 09 and ODS would not support a no-confidence motion in a government they have criticized so heavily during its term. This obviously confirms Babis' narrative that all the establishment parties are out to get him. I wonder whether TOP 09 and ODS, in such a scenario, would not be better served by taking the government down, and hope they can gain a bit by dismissing CSSD and ANO as irresponsible parties. They must hope that such a minority government could find enough dirt on Babis in a few months to severely damage him. However, I think it needs to be really strong evidence if Babis would not be able to simply reject this as another establishment collusion against him.

PM Sobotka accepted Babis' third bid as his possible replacement in the Finance Ministry, the leader of the Deputy Chamber's Economic Committee Ivan Pilny. He was the head of Microsoft’s Czech operations in the 1990s, and has enjoyed a couple of succesful stints in other technology companies. Therefore he was part of a TV show where succesfull entrepreneurs give advice and potentially money to new start-ups, one of many national spin-offs of the Japanese Dragons' Den program. Later Dawn leader Tomio Okamura was another of the experts.

Pilny is less of an obvious acolyte, and as another former businessman, he might think more independently. However, I would still be suprised if one of the highest-ranking ANO members in parliament will now go hard after Babis, but I guess we will se about this. TOP 09 Kalousek is clearly disappointed, and states that Sobotka has unneccesarily lost to Zeman and Babis. ODS leader Fiala states that while it's positive for Babis to leave the government, Pilny will change little.

I have quite a hard time understanding much of what Sobotka has done in this whole process. Broad translation of political analyst Vilem Besser: "Babiš can laugh. Sobotka finally gave up the fight for the Finance Ministy and backed off. Gone is the Bohuslav Sobotka of the past days, a powerful prime minister who makes it clear that he is the boss. Returned has the scared Prime Minister, who does not want to argue with anyone and, especially in battles with Andrey Babiš, retreats to his corner and lets his Deputy Prime Minister do what he wants. This time, Sobotka can not complain about anyone else because he gave up the fight. Many were amazed by the vigorous PM, who resisted attacks from ANO. Also he played a balanced match with President Zeman, and even seemed to have gotten into the lead. Until Wednesday's press conference, that is. Here he accepted Ivan Pilný, and apologized for this cowardly act by saying Pilny was a rebel in ANO with no ties to Agrofert and Babis. However, precisely Pilny's status as a rebel raises questions. Why is Pilny the only MP in ANO who can afford to criticize leaders in the movement without costing him his political career? It is certainly not because he is independent of Babiš".

Hey guys. I'm not sure if this goes here and it's indeed off topic. But in any case I'm currently mapping the two Czechoslovak elections of 1990 and 1992 both at the federal and the republic (CNR/SNR) level at both okres and constituency level. However, I haven't been able to find any data from the Slovak side on the two federal elections (for either SL or SN chamber) online, so I was hoping some of you might know where to look or just help me out a bit., just send me a private message

To clarify, the data for the 1990 and 1992 SNR elections is online, but AFAIK not for the federal election beyond the republic-wide sum.

Babis courts Christian Democrats, rules out Communists and attacks three old parties, especially Kalousek and TOP09. So it seems that if he can't get a majority with the Christian Democrats alone, he will look straight toward Okamura.

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Babis said he did not want to anticipate how the government-forming negotiations between parties would develop after the elections. He said he knows that the other parties may try to form a coalition government without ANO even if ANO wins the elections. A similar situation happened in some Czech regions after the regional elections last autumn ANO ended up in opposition, although it won. "There is the risk that they will all stand against us," said Babis, who is considered the second richest businessman in the country.

Babis, who founded ANO in 2012, said the political veterans who lead the CSSD, TOP 09 and the Civic Democrats (ODS) were responsible for many of the bad things in the country.

He said the talks about a future government would depend on who would lead the negotiations on behalf of individual parties. Babis said the alliance of the KDU-CSL and Mayors and Independents (STAN) had a good programme and ANO's possible cooperation with the KDU/STAN alliance would depend on the negotiators.

Very small chance of that, I would think. I think ALDE considers ANO quite a "good catch" considering their likely role as the biggest party in the Czechia. Fico, Orban etc. are easily tolerated in their respective parties. Verhofstadt recently tried to court Grillo into joining ALDE, so it seems unlikely that anyone would be thrown out simply for cooperating with someone like Okamura.

And really what kind of radical measures could Okamura push a Babis government into doing? If his new party lasts longer than his previous, so he even manages to get some influence. In Western European countries, there is much more potential for actual, radical change on non-western immigration. In a country like Czechia even a Muslim ban would hardly make much difference. The most significant change, he could push is perhaps something on direct democracy and more FPTP-like elections of mayors. But that probably requires constitutional change if it is not just to be incredibly low turnout circus referenda.

After a poor handling of the self-started government crisis and poor opinion polls, with one recent survey having CSSD down in 4th place, the leader of the Social Democrats Bohuslav Sobotka has resigned. Foreign minister Lubomir Zaoralek will lead the party's election campaign while Interior Minister Milan Chovanec will take over duties running the party. Sobotka says he will stay as PM until the election.

Not really surprising that ODS reject playing with Babis. They have often been on the receiving end of his attacks as one of the "three corrupt" parties at the heart of CZ politics. So as expected, ANO's coalition possibilities seem limited to Christian Democrats and the parties on each far wing. The mix of the two will not be easy. And while ANO has been rising to above 30% in recent polls, being clearly the biggest party, polls continue to show Okamura sometimes below the 5% threshold and Christian Democrats/STAN below the 10% threshold for alliances.

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Andrej Babis as well as his ANO movement is unacceptable in the incumbent and in any future government, Petr Fiala, chairman of the rightist opposition Civic Democratic Party (ODS), told CTK today.

He criticised Babis, a billionaire and former finance minister who was dismissed in May over his alleged suspicious business deals and suspected influencing of the media he owned, for failing to fulfil his promises while in the ministerial post. "It is always dangerous in politics, if something is valid in the morning, but not in the evening," Fiala said.

Unlike Babis, who only makes promises to people, the ODS offers a real programme to benefit people, Fiala said. He said the ODS, a former government member, which is now the most popular rightist party, wants to be pushing for raising defence spending to 2 percent of GDP, the acceleration of military purchases and a better recruitment of soldiers and police.

Thanks for your updates, Diouf. If these parties (or even either of them...) don't reach the threshold, this can become surprisingly difficult. I don't understand why the Christian Democrats wanted an alliance. Just find another solution to cooperate while not having to pass the 10% threshold.